Help! Help! I've Been Bieber-ized!

"Guess my age," the customer said.

I hate it when people ask me to guess their age. It's a trap every time. No exceptions.

"I'm terrible at guessing people's ages," I said.

"No, really. Guess how old I am." She kept grinning at me like she could barely contain this really sweet secret.

"Oh, I couldn't. I have no idea. Really." Mentally, I was crab-walking away into my happy place.

"Well, let me guess yours, then," she said. She studied my face and looked at the skin around my eyes. "You're 28, aren't you?"

I was so thrilled with her guessing me ten years younger than I am that I, in turn, did the same for her. She looked pleased.

Being that I haven't escaped our culture's false valuation of youth, I decided to celebrate by buying myself some nail polish the colour of 1950s kitchen appliances.

What I didn't notice at the time is that my nail polish came with extra Justin Bieber.



The Biebs! He's in my girl varnish!

My new nail polish was supposed to be a celebration of my youthy zestfulness, but, once I found out that it was actually a Bieber-ized shade known as My Lifesaver, I just felt kind of weird. It just doesn't seem right for a thirty-eight-year-old to have anything from the Biebs near her person unless she is his close relative.

Like, if the Palinode started wearing Selena Gomez socks or body glitter or something, I would think HELL NO, SIR, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

Instead of youthful, I feel like a weird old lady, and now I can't wipe the image of the Palinode in Gomez-ized body glitter out of my brain.

Not that that is such a huge stretch of the imagination.